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Tuesday, January 3, 2017

French Toast with Homemade Italian Egg Bread

Sweet and Savory French Toast with Italian Egg Bread

I made a huge mistake this weekend. A huge mistake and a wonderful discovery. The back story is that my hubby has a family italian egg bread recipe that he loves, loves, loves! I make it only a couple times a year and this year I made it and we didn't eat it all before New Years Day arrived. Sooo...I decided to try the french toast recipe with the bread.

Holy moly! All new levels of delicious! This was amazing! It's more dense than using texas toast so my slices could be made a bit thinner. It meant the meal went farther and lasted.

All growing up I thought French Toast was bread dipped in egg and toasted on the griddle. It was only after it was cooked that you added cinnamon-sugar, powdered sugar and syrup and all those wonderful things.

I have modified the recipe to make a complete loaf of texas toast. But, what do you do with the leftovers, you ask? Even re-heated the next day, these bad boys taste great! I simply cook all of the toast and then freeze the leftovers and re-heat them when we are ready. Works great and gives me two fun breakfasts in one. Fantastic! It would also be a good way to prepare for a busy school morning. Have a batch of these in the freezer to feed the kids before they leave; quick, easy, no-fuss breakfast as they head out the door.

Melt the butter in a medium bowl and allow it to cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile, gather all other ingredients and prepare/heat up the griddle. Heat your oven to 200 degrees. Spread your bread on a wire rack on a jelly-roll pan so they all lay flat. Place in the over for about 5 minutes. Pull them out and flip each piece over and put it back in the over for another 5 minutes. You want to the bread to feel dry to the touch but not dry out the center of each slice. It keeps the bread from getting soggy when placed in the batter.

Measure out the milk in a measuring cup and warm it to room temperature. Add the egg and the vanilla. Whisk together. When butter has cooled to warm, add a small amount of milk while whisking to infuse the milk and butter. Add a little more and keep whisking. Keep doing this until all of the liquid is in with the butter. This will prevent the butter from re-solidifying when the milk hits it. Now add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk together until well blended. Finally, add the flour slowly, whisking each addition to create a smooth batter.

Dip one slice at a time into the batter, covering both sides, and place it on the griddle. Brown on each side for a few minutes (this depends on your griddle and your personal preference for how toasted you want it). Once done, remove it from the griddle and place on a warm plate while you toast the rest (I usually keep a plate in the microwave to put them on, nice little incubator). Continue in the same manner until all of the toast is toasted. Serve with eggs, fresh fruit, bacon, you name it!

**To freeze, I use the jelly roll pan to lay leftovers flat and place it in the freezer. Once they're frozen thru, I stack them and place them in a freezer bag. Pull out what you want and warm in the microwave for a minute or so. Yum!